


The Anchor

by SilverWolfPup



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Game Spoilers, Other, POV Second Person, Pain, The Anchor, Tresspasser Spoilers in Chapter 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5607244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverWolfPup/pseuds/SilverWolfPup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor's relationship with the Anchor. (Primarily painful)</p><p>Also, I was deliberately non-specific about things that weren't directly tied to the Anchor so feel free to imagine any Inquisitor trying to deal with it, with any love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Anchor

The first thing you know about the Anchor is the simplest thing in the world.

It hurts.

As Cassandra threatens and yells it's there, constantly, a ripple of something that doesn't have any word for it but _green_. Not a good green, but a waking dream of agony. And as your jailer takes you outside, you realise why it's a _dream_ of agony. Your pain is only an echo of the pain of the sky, of the earth, split by the Fade.

And each time the Breach grows, it brings you to your knees. Almost every time, it brings you to your knees, _pleading_. _Just make it stop_.

It's the most peculiar feeling, when Solas picks up your hand, and it _rushes_ through the Mark like a dammed river finally given a place to go, a pain like peeling off a scab echoing through your hand. It never changes, never hurts more or less, except when it's time to close the Breach. The Breach is pain, the breach is _agony_ , _it hurts, can't stop, just let it be done it **hurts**_...

The darkness afterward is a blessing, but waking up afterwards is terrifying. ( _What will they do to me now?_ )

~~~

They ask you the same question a thousand times in a thousand different ways. Cassandra, first. But then all of them start to ask; your companions, your lover. They ask that simple, unutterably stupid question.

"Does the Mark hurt?"

You always answer _No,_ lying through your teeth with a smile, or maybe a glare. Or nothing. They should be able to work it out without asking that question, surely. The Mark on your hand was branded on and it holds tight for some reason you can't quite understand, aching and twisting over-under-inside your skin with power you knows nothing of.

You rip apart the Veil on painful instinct, the reflex to save your life whatever the cost. You hold that power under your skin. ( _No wonder it hurts_ )

Even when everything is done, the Anchor still burns when it flares, still aches while it curls under the skin.

You've grown used to this Mark of your status and power, you don't mind the price of pain for being able to save the world. But you can't help but wish, sometimes, that this agony belonged to someone else to endure.

A selfish thought, perhaps. But honest.

 


End file.
